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The abortion debate will forever be with us

The issue of abortion is getting quite a workout this spring.

Protesters gather in Halifax on the one-year anniversary of the death of Dr. Henry Morgentaler last month as they campaign for improved access to abortion in Canada. (Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Abortion. If you’re Prime Minister Stephen Harper, it’s too “divisive” an issue to be included in his otherwise laudable $3.5 billion renewed maternal health care package to improve the lives of women and children in developing countries.

If you’re Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, a woman’s right to choose is so sacred it cannot be left to the conscience of any potential candidate, but must be adhered to and affirmed before even getting a nomination.

And if you’re the makers of a new, bound to be controversial movie Obvious Child, abortion is the central event in what, according to the New York Times, is being hyped as “a turning point movie,” the first “abortion comedy” in which the woman “never wavers in her course of action” and certainly doesn’t end up a tragic heroine. Apparently, there are tons of laughs.

So let’s just say the issue of abortion is getting quite a workout this spring, one that challenges thinking on both sides of this passionate debate. It’s of course the one deeply charged issue that will sadly never depart the political stage — too personal, too freighted, cannot be resolved in any way that satisfies both polarities in an endless argument.

I’ve been an ardent pro-choicer all my adult life, would take to the streets to defend a woman’s (and all our daughters’) right to choose. My favourite pro-choice demo sign of all time was one carried years ago by a good friend, heavily, joyfully pregnant, which read: “Pro baby, pro choice.” That, and the time-worn phrase “abortion should be safe, legal and rare” sums up my stance.

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Yet both Harper and Trudeau gave me pause with their actions. And forced me to see the other side.

In his maternal care package, Harper showed he had made progress in his thinking. He finally budged on funds for “family planning” (a phrase that As It Happens host Carol Off pointed out couldn’t get past former Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda’s lips in 2010 when the initiative was first announced.) But abortion? Uh uh. It’s still apparently a step too far, even though many thousands of woman die in these countries from unsafe illegal abortions.

I was torn between acknowledging the incremental good (got to start somewhere) his initiative would do and condemning his lack of world leadership on the crucial issue of abortion. In the end, I simply can’t ignore the deep hypocrisy in refusing an opportunity to help provide for women overseas what is safely available to them here in their own privileged country.

Yet Justin Trudeau’s “no pro choice no Liberal voice” stance took me aback too. It earned him both accolades as a principled leader, and the inevitable brickbats from the Catholic Church (which sees no contradiction in dictating its own stance on abortion to faithful followers while decrying Trudeau’s right to do so.)

Still Trudeau’s initiative seemed odd. Why go there, and why now? One can see the political strategy of it — make Harper’s Conservatives the only party whose members would deny a woman’s right to choose. (The NDP has long affirmed that right.) And who knows what rough beast is slouching toward the Conservative leadership crown after Harper’s inevitable departure? If it’s Jason Kenney, whose fervent anti-choice stance dates back to his university days, look out.

But there’s bad politics in Trudeau’s announcement too, because it throws up a flare on abortion, perversely flagging it as open—not closed — for discussion when most Canadians are content with the way things are.

Sometimes I worry we are into a don’t ask, don’t tell morass on abortion. It’s decriminalized but not equally accessible, and the social prohibitions against personally discussing it are strong. While privacy is paramount in this issue, the unease around abortion has increased, and I feel sorry for any woman who has to feel ashamed of making a difficult but legitimate choice that bearing a child is deeply wrong for her at this point in her life.

Both Jenny Slate, the gifted comedian who stars in Obvious Child, and the film’s writer-director Gillian Robespierre have been frank in talking about how previous movies like Juno or Knocked Up, in which the heroines, initially appalled by accidental pregnancies, heartwarmingly decide to give birth and raise the child, “didn’t feel true.”

As Slate told one radio interviewer, “one in three women in America has had an abortion but no one has the experience that I see in movies.”

In the trailer for Obvious Child, the heroine practises in front of her mirror telling the man who was supposed to be her one night stand: “Remember when we did sex to each other? I’m having your abortion, do you want to share dessert?”

Well that’s … bracing. Hey, here’s an idea. Stephen, Justin, let’s go to the movie together. I’ll buy the popcorn and we can all shift a little in our seats.

Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson

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